About

So who is the Butterfly?

I'm a personal trainer and wellness coach and I enjoy the hell out of it. Self image is an intensely personal thing, and there is nothing quite so satisfying to me as helping someone reach their fitness goals. Originally I wanted to be a nurse, until it dawned on me that I would spend the rest of my life trying to clean up the problems people had acquired from a lifetime of bad decisions. I realized I needed to be in preventative care over emergency care and now spend my days helping people make healthy decisions that keep them out of a doctor's office.

I'm a mother of two. Aidyn is a seven year old scholar of dinosaurs and Transformers who loves routine, random facts and the outdoors, a super stoic and sensitive little being who can turn silly on a dime. Ellery is his mischievous five year old shadow, a girl who knows her own mind, has the most wicked awesome sense of style ever, and sings her way through the day with her breezy little vibe.

 I am in love. Irrevocably and completely in love. Meet Mike, the Crow. He is, quite simply and then not so simply at all, my best friend. He's completely self aware, notices tiny details about everyday life that no one else would see, is funny as hell and has the most beautiful soul I've ever seen. His mind blows me away - I've never met someone so completely insane and brilliant at the same time. And darling, the abs don't hurt either. He is my center, keeping me grounded when my mad habits threaten to send me spiraling out of the stratosphere.


And those mad habits? Well they make up and fill in the rest of the picture. While too numerous to completely catalog, here are a few random tidbits....

I'm an unrepentant coffee addict. I drink the stuff morning, noon and night. I realize that this habit might be partly to blame for my sometimes frenetic behavior but as I've already had to give up so many of the foods that I used to adore I refuse to retire my mug. I figure the mental high I get as I take that first sip of hot liquid sanity is worth a few jitters and some small part of my adrenal function.

I'm a bit of a "hippie", in fact, my mother fondly refers to me as her "hippie love child". All this really means is that I prefer to respect the earth and her natural resources whenever possible. Brief examples: I cloth diapered my littles, use organic and local foods whenever I can, and clean my home without the use of harsh chemicals. I don't really see it as hippie living, but as better living.

I don't eat gluten or dairy. Well, occasionally I cheat with the dairy, I mean sometimes, a girl just needs a good piece of Parmesan, but I avoid most grains like the plague - which now I start to think about it, I believe it might be. There is a long and detailed story behind this way of living that I will leave for a different post, suffice it to say here that I have a condition which seems to fare better on this cleaned up diet.

I love to cook. I went temporarily insane when I found out I wasn't supposed to be eating what felt like half the food items in my pantry, until I learned to restock my pantry in a way that opened it back up to me again. You, dear reader, get the perks of this, as I will regularly post recipes of my own, along with links to some of my favorite recipes from bloggers on my food wavelength.

Last but not least, I'm a creative force who is easily bored. This rather effectively sums up quite a few quirks. As a result I have too many hobbies to name and never enough time to keep them all in constant rotation, but as my friends are fond of saying, I keep life interesting.

Above all of this however, the one trait that keeps the aforementioned intact and woven together into this seamless blend that is my world is this: I am a lover.

I love my odd little family, I love the rush I get when I push through an intense workout, I love the way music can speak to me in a way no human can, I love finding a good bargain on something I just can't live without, I love writing and how the words I can't find to say out loud flow like water from my pen or keyboard, I love the way the sun lights up my little kitchen in the morning, I love good friends and more than anything, I absolutely love life. Welcome to mine.